The Turkish defense industry is targeting a turnover of $8 billion and an export figure of $2 billion for 2016, according to the Undersecretariat for the Defense Industry’s (SSM) Murad Bayar.

The Turkish defense industry was getting a lot of attention from other countries and that Turkey had reached an important level in its technology capacity, Bayar told the Anatolia news agency at the sidelines of a recent Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges of Turkey (TOBB) meeting. That said, he stressed that the Turkish industrial defense industry needed to use the latest technology and most recently developed products.

“For the continuity of our exports, reliability, cost and quality production are very important,” Bayar said. Going forward, the responsibility for weapons systems will lie solely in the hands of companies, he said.

The SSM had increased its targets within the scope of the 2011-2016 Strategic Plan, Industrial Defense Assistant Undersecretary Sedat Güldoğan said. The 2016 turnover target is $8 billion, and $2 billion in defense exports, he said, noting, however, that the export target could be revised depending on the sector’s performance.

The defense sector’s 2011 turnover, including aviation figures, reached $4.4 billion, and that its underlying sectors, including electronics, were responsible for 34.5 percent of the total, with 15.96 percent for land vehicles and 13.59 percent for aviation and space aircraft, according to TOBB’s Industrial Defense Assembly President Yılmaz Küçükşeyhan.

Turkey’s industrial defense exports have already reached $1 billion, with 36.24 percent being shipped to Europe, 32.61 percent to North America and 19 percent to the Middle East and North Africa.